Claire Danes attends Valentino Garavani Virtual Museum Launch party at the IAC Headquarters on December 7, 2011 in New York City.

Claire Danes has kept fans of “Homeland” in a state of high anxiety all season, so it’s only fair that now she’ll be the one in suspense.

The 32-year-old actress was nominated for a Golden Globe this morning for her role in the Showtime spy thriller. Danes previously won a Golden Globe (and an Emmy) for her role in the 2010 HBO movie “Temple Grandin.”

In “Homeland,” Danes plays bipolar CIA agent Carrie Mathison, a woman who becomes convinced that an American Marine who had been held captive by al-Qaeda has been turned into a sleeper agent who poses a threat to America.

Danes talked to Speakeasy about the nomination, and the coming “Homeland” finale, which airs Sunday at 10 p.m. ET/PT.

What is it about cable that seems to bring out the best in you?

Well, these are two extraordinary characters [Carrie Mathison and Temple Grandin]. It’s not very often that I’m given an opportunity to play such dynamic, unusual people. I think that cable is a really exciting environment. A great medium, and one that’s stretching the boundaries of television.

Your character is a little unstable—maybe a lot unstable depending on whether she’s on her meds. You spent two years studying psychology at Yale. Did you draw on that training to understand this character?

I think that’s an overstatement. I fantasized about being a psychology major when I first started school, and I took a handful of psych 101 classes. But I am by no means qualified to even think about such issues. Well, maybe I’m qualified to think about it, but that’s the extent of it. But I read a lot of books about the bipolar condition and I talked to a woman named Julie Fast who is bipolar herself and has written books about the subject, and talked to psychologists, and actually watched a lot of YouTube videos with people who have the condition and basically inhaled as much information as I could about that and the CIA. It was kind of like rubbing my belly and patting my head for awhile. It was hard to coordinate those two things.

What else did you do to prepare for the CIA side of your role?

I also worked with a woman who is a CIA officer and we took a field trip to Langley and I read a lot of books about the CIA. I just had to delve into two subjects. By the time we were up and running I had enough familiarity with them to be able to let it go and move on. But there was a stack of books on both those things on both ends of my bed.

When you have a show like “Homeland” that takes a lot of twists and turns and characters are cast in new light, do you need to know the twists in advance to be able to play your character?

It’s valuable to have a general sense of the trajectory, but even our writers aren’t entirely clear about what’s going to happen two episodes down the line. We’re all just working with whatever information we have at a given moment and that seems to be sufficient.

The finale is coming up. How will fans react?

I have no way of knowing that. But the finale is no less provocative than the show has been so far. I think that people will be hungry for more. Just hungry enough. The writers answer all the questions they pose but they make sure to pose a whole slew of new questions at the audience that we will begin to answer in season two.

How do you go about making sure there are satisfying storylines to explore in season two?

I have no idea. That is so not my job. That’s a question for the writers.

How important are awards like this to you?

I think a lot of people in this business have conflicting feelings about awards. In some ways they’re lovely. In other ways it’s not why we do what we do. It kind of feels like worrying about being asked to the prom. Of course you want to be asked. It’s not necessarily because you have any real desire to go to the prom. You have social pressure. That said I don’t want to sound like an ingrate. It’s incredibly flattering. It really does mean a lot to have the community pause and reflect on the hard work that you’ve done and appreciate it for a moment. But it’s really an aside.

Christopher John Farley is the editorial director of the Wall Street Journal blogs. Follow him on Twitter at @cjfarley